Events

[INDIE] There is a short biography of Father John Misty on the Sub Pop Records website and it’s written by Mr. Misty himself. It’s not a biography in a traditional sense, though. It does not begin with the story of how Misty,  AKA Joshua Tillman,  grew up in a household of Evangelical Christians in a Washington DC suburb where secular music was not allowed and where hell was a real place, somewhere down there. The bio begins with a story about how Tillman tries to avoid writing love songs. They’re “just so passe,” he says, before explaining why he called his latest record, I Love You, Honeybear (he admits, he’s never called anyone Honeybear before). The former Fleet Foxes drummer prefers writing music about, well, writing (see “I’m Writing a Novel,” “Bored in the USA”), or creating the sort of fun anti-love songs found on his Father John Misty debut, Fear Fun.

Though he’d been writing solo music as J. Tillman since as early as 2003, Father John Misty became a completely new identity—a vaguely cultish drifting druggie figure—for the multi-insturmentalist. At times, his alter ego even communicates with his ego-ego on meta-folkish songs like “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apartment.” Tillman clearly knows how to write a solid, rustic folk song, but on I Love You, Honeybear, he even moves into some Postal Service-esque drum machines and synth strings on “True Affection,” after teasing his musical range on a collaboration with rapper Kid Cudi in 2013. Father John Misty comes to the Town Ballroom on Saturday, August 1 with support from Springtime Carnivore.